God påske {Rachelle Anne Miller Creative Studios}

Hi, crafty friends. There’s a new release today from Rachelle Anne Miller. It’s all spring and Easter themed, and I’m here for it. I’m glad spring is officially here with the arrival of March, even though we still have snow on the ground, and probably have more snow coming.

I used the Egg hunt stamp for my card today. Egg hunting isn’t really a thing in Norway. Neither are Easter cards, but I sent a couple last year, and they were very much appreciated by their recipients, so maybe it should be. And when there are cute images, I just can’t resist.

I wanted a pastel look for my card, and this is probably the lightest wash of color I’ve ever done with my Copics. Except for E25 on the guinea pig, I’ve only used markers ending in numbers that are 3 or lower. That’s super light for someone who doesn’t shy away from using markers ending with 9. Once the coloring was complete, I used a black glaze pen to create shine in their eyes, and I went over it with a dot of white Gelly Roll 05 on the bunny.

From a piece of Winter Wisteria cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I die cut a circle opening and also used a faux stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things to create a little bit of extra interest around the edge of the panel, before mounting it on foam tape.

I used a die from Papirdesign to make my God påske (Happy Easter in Norwegian) sentiment, and made it dimensional by stacking four white die cuts on top of each other, before finishing off the card with a few crystals from Papirdesign that match the Winter Wisteria cardstock nicely.

Here it is, the softest color palette ever.

Easter treats {Sweet November Stamps}

Happy Easter Eve! I thought I’d share a couple of super simple treat wrappers with you, featuring the Sweet Easter stamp set from Sweet November Stamps.

Fun fact: Despite being a secular country, Norway has the longest Easter holiday in the world. I happen to love that fact, and we have some other elements to our Easter that are unique to Norway, like reading crime novels and watching murder mystery movies/miniseries on TV. An Easter without a good crime novel sounds like a miserable one, to be honest. I’m spending all 10 days of my Easter holiday at our cabin in the mountains with my family. Before leaving, I made these cute chocolate wrappers that I’m giving the kids today. Chocolate is a natural part of Easter, after all. I colored these cute images from the Sweet Easter stamp set with my Copics and fussy cut them. I put them aside while I worked on the rest of these little chocolate wrappers.

I used patterned paper from Papirdesign for both of these, wrapping the paper around the chocolate, adding glue to the seam and one end. Super simple, right? I added my colored chickens with foam tape and die cut the letters for their names using the Connected alpha die set from My Favorite Things. I die cut two layers from white cardstock and the top layer from Bright Buttercup cardstock from Papertrey Ink for the yellow, and patterned paper from Papirdesign for the purple.

I created slits at the open end to feed ribbon through, and put the ribbon around the chocolate. By doing this, the chocolate comes out of the wrapper when you pull on the ribbon. I put what’s known as fairy tale chocolate inside both of these. There are different illustrations from well known fairy tales on the chocolate wrapper, and the fairy tale itself is written on the inside. The fairy tale depicted on this wrapper is about a pancake that doesn’t want to get eaten, so he runs away from everyone and everything trying to eat him… until he meets a pig.

The color palette for these two couldn’t possibly be any simpler, right?

A little sweet surprise {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, crafty friends. I have a simple card to share today, featuring this Chocs Away image from Lili of the Valley. A bunny making it rain chocolate eggs, what’s not to love?

I colored the image with Copics and fussy cut it, leaving a white border. The frame that’s part of the image makes fussy cutting super easy, the only thing sticking out is one small egg at the bottom. I mounted my panel on a card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink. This card is on the smaller side, it measures 3 x 4 7/8″.

I colored a separate piece of X-Press It blending card with one of the purples I used for the image. I made sure it was dry before I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the IWCL2017005 English stamp set from InkyWings. I popped it up the colored piece for even more dimension, using Double Thick Crystal Clear foam tape from The Rabbit Hole Designs.

I added a few Pearl White Crystals from Pretty Pink Posh between all the eggs for a little bit of embellishment.

A simple card, but the dimension adds some interest. The clear foam tape makes the sentiment look like it’s floating above the card.

Soft color palette for this one.

Easter fun {Rachelle Anne Miller Creative Studios}

Hi, crafty friends. There’s a new release out right now from Rachelle Anne Miller. It’s all about Easter Friends. There are eggs, guinea pigs, a cute woodland scene and a scene creator set, but I just had to choose Koala’s Easter for my card. With my ties to Australia there was really no other choice.

Isn’t this image the cutest? The koala with the bunny ears painting the egg with the little bunny watching, it’s sooo sweet. I colored this image using a lot more colors than I normally would, but they’re colors that scream spring to me, so I’m all for it, I definitely long for warmer days.

I put a strip of pink patterned paper from My Favorite Things above and below the image, and added a few more patterned paper pieces (from Lawn Fawn and My Favorite Things) angled behind my colored piece, before die cutting all of them using the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 die set from My Favorite Things to create that faux stitch look that I love to add to my cards. I used the same die to die cut from yellow patterned paper from Lawn Fawn, adhered that to my card base, then mounted my colored piece on top using foam tape.

Onto a piece of vellum, I stamped a sentiment from an Easter stamp set from Papirdesign (PD18390 Påske) using VersaFine Onyx Black ink and clear heat embossed it, before die cutting it using one of the dies in the Fishtail Flag Frames die set from My Favorite Things.

I tied a bow around my sentiment banner using twine from Whisker Graphics in the color Lemon, and then I finished off the card with a few yellow enamel dots from the Pocketful of Sunshine enamel dot collection from Altenew.

Lots of colors for this one.

Easter treat

Hi, there! I’ve got an Easter card to share today, with a little bit of a treat inside.

Påskekort Lee Holland Bunny front

I actually made this card last year, for an Easter card swap. Easter cards aren’t really a thing in Norway, but because of lockdown last year, I figured what the heck. Easter to me is ten glorious days spent in the mountains. Skiing and playing in the snow all day, card and board games at night. Reading crime novels (a uniquely Norwegian Easter tradition), eating oranges and chocolate; it all belongs. Obviously there was no trip to the mountains last year, and I knew that it wouldn’t really feel like Easter for me at all, but I wanted to try to make someone else feel like it was still Easter.

Påskekort Lee Holland Bunny front skrått

I colored up this bunny from Lee Holland using the no line technique, and made an oval frame around him using a die set from Neat & Tangled. Using the same die with some patterned paper from Sunny Studio, I created a window for my oval frame to sit in. I also used a faux stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things to get the nice detail on the edge that I love so much.

Påskekort Lee Holland Bunny front skrått venstre

I stamped a sentiment from Papirdesign onto a piece of yellow cardstock from Papertrey Ink using Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide ink, and die cut it using another die from that same set of dies from Neat & Tangled as the ovals. I added the die cut banner on foam tape and adhered a few sequins from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to draw attention to the sentiment.

Påskekort Lee Holland Bunny inni

The inside of the card is where the magic is. It hides chocolate! Not just any chocolate, either, this is as official of an Easter chocolate as you get in Norway. This particular chocolate is a symbol of Norwegian culture. The average Norwegian eats 9 Kvikk Lunsj bars a year, 3 of them at Easter. You don’t mess with a Norwegian and his/her kvikk lunsj! 😉 I blurred and smudged the personal message in this photo. I don’t have a Copic color palette to share for this card, it’s been a year since I made it, after all.

Smile – it’s spring {Lili of the Valley}

Hi, everyone! I have a quick and easy card to share today, featuring Balancing Bunny from the upcoming release from Lili of the Valley. Lots of Easter themed images, which is perfect right now, don’t you think?

I colored the image in with my Copics and used partial die cutting with a die from My Favorite Things to turn it into a tall, slim panel. I stamped and white heat embossed a stamp from the Pinstripe stamp set from Altenew repeatedly on a card base I made out of Winter Wisteria card stock from Papertrey Ink, and added my colored piece in the center using foam tape. I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from Papirdesign onto a scrap piece of card stock, die cut it and matted it with a white circle, before using 1 mm foam squares to pop it off the colored piece just a bit. And that finished the card for today. Super simple.

Lots of colors used for this one, for some reason.

God påske {Streamside Studios}

Hi, everyone! I have an Easter card to share today, featuring the Easter Friends slimline panel stamp from Streamside Studios. I scaled the image to fit the front of a mini slimline, and colored the image with Copics.

Soft, pastel colors throughout this one. I die cut the panel into a rectangle by doing partial die cutting twice with a stitched rectangle die from My Favorite Things. I don’t have any dies for mini slimline cards, but partial die cutting definitely works.

I added the panel to a card base made from Lavender Moon card stock from Papertrey Ink. I die cut God påske (die from Papirdesign) four times; three from white card stock and once from Lavender Moon. I stacked them and centered my dimensional die cut as best I could above the image, before finishing off with some sequins from the White Orchid Sequin Mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. I love her mixes, they’re awesome!

My light Copic palette shouldn’t come as a surprise, pastels and spring go hand in hand.

Vi prøver fiskelykken {Ett trykk}

Hei og hopp! I dag har jeg noe så sjeldent å vise frem som en LO. Det er ikke ofte jeg deler LOer, men noen ganger bare må jeg, og dette er en av de gangene. I Ett trykk velger vi i designteamet i hvert nummer én scrapper vi lar oss inspirere av. Valget mitt i oktobernummeret var Cathy Zielske. Hun er kanskje ikke den mest kjente scrapperen for nordmenn, men det henger nok mye sammen med at hun i utgangspunktet ikke er en kortlager. Hun har de siste par årene begynt å lage kort også, men det er i den rene hybrid-LO-verdenen hun er godt bevandret, og det er også det jeg har tatt utgangspunkt i til mine to LOer (den andre kommer her på bloggen neste uke). Hun gjør alt designarbeidet til LOene sine i Photoshop, skriver tekst og bilder og printer ut hver for seg, før hun setter seg ned og fysisk setter sammen LOen. Perfekt for meg, for det er den samme måten jeg lager LOer på. Jeg er ikke av typen som lager en LO med ett bilde, masse stæsj og null tekst – det er pent å se på, men det gir meg ingenting. Jeg vil nemlig bevare minnene, så jeg bruker mange bilder, mye tekst og lite stæsj, ganske stikk motsatt av en “normal” norsk LO-lager.

Dagens LO er dermed av det enkle slaget, men det er historien som er viktig å bevare for meg. Mannen til storesøs var en smule urutinert på hytta for et par påsker siden. Han tok nemlig av seg skiene på kanten ved elva da vi stoppet på tur – uten å sette opp skiene i snøen. Resultatet var selvsagt at begge skiene hans skled ned i elva. Han og pappa brukte en time på å fiske dem opp igjen, og det måtte det bli en liten historie av.

Bildene er skrevet ut på fotopapir, resten av LOen rett ut fra Photoshop på Stampers Select White kartong fra Papertrey Ink. Det eneste jeg har brukt å pynte med er noen finérsnøfnugg fra Lawn Fawn. Det beste med å lage alt i Photoshop er at jeg kan få tekst og bilder til å matche. Jeg brukte den samme rødfargen som er på jakken til Lars på bildet til å skrive tittelen min.

Ved å bruke den røde fargen på datomerkingen min og også på strekene mellom alle setningene får jeg en rød tråd gjennom hele layouten, selv om layouten i seg selv er veldig enkel.

God påske {Ett trykk}

Hei og hopp! Påskeferien begynner for mange i dag, og nevøen min har bursdag og blir hele 10 år. Hipp hipp hurra både for påsken og Leon. Jeg har en bretteeske i dag, publisert i februarnummeret av Ett trykk.

Jeg har ikke akkurat så mange påskestempler, så jeg endte opp med å printe ut tekst fra PCen i en farge som matcher mønsterarket jeg har brukt til esken min, som er fra Grandma’s school book-kolleksjonen til Pion Design.

Esken har en ganske så snedig lukkemekanisme, men det er absolutt ikke vanskelig. Fremgangsmåten finner du i februarbladet av Ett trykk. Jeg har pyntet med et chipboardegg fra Wycinanka, en bitteliten blomst fra Prima og en grønn perle fra Papirdesign – og det er faktisk hele esken.